How to Promote a Moving Picture Corporation

[Spelling and punctuation are Mr. Howard's]

It is difficult to say how the thing starts. Just as in a disease it is impossible to determine the precise moment that the germ alights upon one. An idea, like a microbe, fastens upon one in a very artful way, and before one knows what has happened one is in its clutches.

It happened to me about two years ago. I suddenly realized that I desired to do something for the uplift of the motion picture. Having played one or two comedy parts on the stage I felt I knew all about comedy. And I thought that nearly all the short comedy pictures on the screens just then were rotten. In fact there were no short comedy films—only mud-pie slapstick. All the picture theatre seemed to present one big film known, I believe, as a feature, and fill the rest of the programme up with junk.

Thus the germ entered my mind. I would provide the British movie public (all this happened in London) with short comedies that were comedies, and later I hoped my remarkable comedies would be uplifting the movie public from London to Montreal and from Kansas City to Tokyo. Unable to escape from the idea I proceeded to try and materialise it. The people to whom I spoke at first, those who were not too bored to discuss it at all, said it was a rotten idea and that it was a waste of time trying to uplift the movie public. Then I met a film director who said it was a marvellous idea, and that if he directed the productions they would be a tremendous success. He said, ‘I suppose you’ll have at least a million pounds behind you. You can’t do much for less.’

Contrary though it may have been to the suppositions of my friends, I didn’t happen to have a million handy just then. But I didn’t let that worry me. I watched the methods of other film company promoters. There was a regular epidemic of them just then, all demanding vast sums from the amiable public—and, apparently, getting it. I noticed that the stunt was to collect a Board of Directors who were as famous or notorious as possible and then to say, in effect, ‘Look at this wonderful bunch. They made fortunes for themselves. Now they’re going to make one for you. Buy as much stock as you can.’ So I started off to find some directors.

I commenced with my friend Nigel Playfair who was very prominent just then on account of his production of Abraham Lincoln at his Hammersmith Theatre. I talked movie uplift to him for a few hours and he was very sympathetic indeed. He had only one objection. ‘I don’t want to spend a lot of money on this,’ he said.

I replied, ‘Don’t worry about that. We’re giving our brains, our friends can supply the money. It’s brains that are rare.’ While quite seeing this simple truth, Playfair was still a little dubious—till I mentioned A. A. Milne. ‘Ah, if you can get Milne to join,’ he said, ‘I will too.’

So I set off to see Milne. I was just rehearsing in his play Mr Pim so he knew something about me and didn’t throw me out of the house when I started talking movie uplift. Instead, after a brief communion with his eternal pipe, he said, ‘If Playfair joins, I will.’ He then suggested getting a prominent actor on the board—Aubrey Smith, for instance—and also a business man. He said most companies had at least one business man on the board.

So I proceeded to get Aubrey Smith and a business man, and we had our first meeting. I was appointed Managing Director and was told to get on with it. I started by breaking the news to Milne that we wanted six two-reel comedies from him at once for Aubrey Smith and myself to act in. My modest request was a bit of a shock to him but he stood it like a man and went home to think it over. I hadn’t dared mention this before to Milne as I was afraid it might fighten him off the whole thing.

The next few weeks I was rushing about wildly between lawyers and board meetings. It is a terrible thing about lawyers that once you set them going, wind them up so to speak, nothing on earth will stop them. We seemed to have hundreds of board meetings. They were great fun. We all talked and had tea, and talked, and smoked, and talked… Until one day the lawyers appeared and told us all was ready, we were incorporated, and should begin business at once.

‘Splendid!’ said everybody.

‘And about time,’ murmured Milne who had already written three scenarios.

Then we got an awful shock. Our business-man director informed us, quite without emotion, that our subscription list was short of—I forget how much but I know it struck me at the time as rather a hefty amount. What was worse, it was apparently somewhat illegal for us to commence until the total issue of stock had been taken up. The lawyers solved the problem at once—they always do, ‘It’s quite simple,’ they said. ‘All the directors have to do is guarantee the balance themselves. Here is the form. Sign here, please.’

I think this was where they began to lose faith in me. Playfair’s look at me was harrowing. I dared not look at Milne. Their glances plainly said, ‘You dragged us into this!’ Only the lawyers looked triumphant. ‘Well,’ I said cheerfully, ‘it will be worth it all a year from now when everybody gets a big dividend.’ And I threw myself feverishly into the task of engaging a permanent staff and the cast for the first production. I interviewed dozens of directors, assistant directors, camera-men, property-men, electricians, carpenters, scenic painters, three hundred ex-soldiers, two hundred old friends and nearly all the actresses and actors in England. Finally, by a process of elimination, the staff and the cast were fixed and they started shooting the first Milne screen comedy ever produced.

I appeared at the next Board meeting a nervous wreck. My co-directors were sympathetic but said I ought to take a rest from my honorary job. Our business man director went even further. He said we didn’t really need a Managing Director at all and, in any case, I didn’t look like a Managing Director as I hadn’t sufficient weight and my appearance was altogether too youthful. He proposed that we eliminate the office of Managing Director. I seconded the motion feeling it was the polite thing to do. Anyway I was feeling a bit weak after my labours. At the same meeting the business man director was somehow elected Chairman of the Board, which I discovered later was synonymous with Managing Director. I suppose he had more weight.

Some twelve months or so later we sat down to discuss the result of the trade showing of the Milne comedies. They had taken an interminable time to produce. At least so it seemed to us in our ignorance. Our production director said it couldn’t be helped, the climate had been against him and he had had to battle with storm, fire and pestilence and we were lucky to see the result at all. As a matter of fact we thought the films delightful. So did all our friends and the pressmen who had witnessed the show. All the papers came out with many columns in praise of our noble effort at movie uplift. ‘Most artistic…charming comedies…real wit…delicate…Milne successfully screened’ and so on.

Unfortunately the Exhibitor, the person on whom we depended for a financial return, didn’t seem to get the ‘delicacy’ of the comedies. The majority of the exhibitors in England run public houses as their principal business and picture-theatres as a side-line. ‘Comedies, are they!’ they said. ‘Well they ain’t funny enough. More like dramas.’ They offered us about two hundred pounds apiece for them. ‘We only use comedies as “fill-up”,’ they announced. Two hundred pounds didn’t seem much when one considered they had cost something like a thousand each to produce.

Once more I was unable to meet the glances of my co-directors. Once more their looks indicated, ‘You dragged us into this!’ Especially Milne who had done a lot of work and was being paid on results. ‘What about the big dividend?’ somebody murmured. Every time we met, the reproach in Milne’s eye worried me.

Shortly after this I went to America. I daresay Milne thought he was rid of me. Nothing of the kind. I was asked to play in Mr Pim over here. I am now playing in The Truth About Blayds—also by Milne—and quite unsought for by me. Of this Mr Alexander Woollcott has written in the New York Times: ‘Leslie Howard should be imediately placed under contract to play nothing but Milne plays as long as they both shall live.’

I am three thousand miles from Mr Milne—but Fate knows no boundaries. Distance means nothing to Destiny.

Trivial Fond Records, pgs. 34-37

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